Sunday, November 4, 2012

Date-Banana-Walnut Muffin

This year Autumn has been the most beautiful Autumn that we have witnessed ever since being here in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The beauty of the foliage seems to have transformed the city that we live in into a Magical Land. Last month alone we have had 2 hiking trips just to take in the beauty of the Mother Nature –Cape Split and McNab Island. Having that said, I have lesser time to bake in the kitchen now. Probably will do more baking in the Winter time. This week I have tried a new muffin recipe using date. We bought a big bag of dates from Costco and since then, I am looking forward to using it in my baking. I have selected this healthy Fat Free Banana-Date-Walnut muffin recipe. However, I have made some modifications to the recipe as follows:

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup unbleached white flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 cup white/brown sugar

3 very ripe bananas, mashed

1/2 cup almond milk

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1/3 cup natural apple sauce

1/2 cup chopped dates

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Steps:

Preheat the oven to 400 and spray a muffin pan with non-stick spray. Sift together the flours, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In another bowl, mash the banana with the sugar, almond milk, vanilla essence and apple sauce.

Pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture and stir just until combined. Add in the dates and walnuts, and pour into 12 muffin cups. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

The muffin is nice to be served with some whipping peanut butter/butter. It is good for freezing as well.